Edward Levy-Lawson, 1st Baron Burnham
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Edward Levy-Lawson, 1st Baron Burnham KCVO (28 December 1833 – 9 January 1916), known as Sir Edward Levy-Lawson, 1st Baronet, from 1892 to 1903, was a British newspaper proprietor.
Biography
Levy-Lawson was the son of Joseph Moses Levy and his wife Esther (née Cohen). His father had acquired the Daily Telegraph - known as The Daily Telegraph and Courier - in 1855 only months after its founding. Levy-Lawson was editor and in control of the paper long before his father's death in 1888. From 1885, he was managing proprietor and sole controller of his renamed Daily Telegraph and became even more influential than his father on Fleet Street. In 1875, he assumed by Royal licence the surname of Lawson in addition to and after that of Levy. He bought the Hall Barn estate in 1880. Levy-Lawson was created a Baronet, of Hall Barn in the County of Buckingham in 1892, and in 1903 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Burnham, of Hall Barn in the Parish of Beaconsfield in the County of Buckingham. In 1886, he was appointed High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire.[1]
Family
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Lord Burnham married Harriette Georgiana, daughter of Benjamin Nottingham Webster, in 1862. Lady Burnham died in 1897. Lord Burnham's love of pheasant shooting resulted in him enjoying a close relationship with King Edward VII, his son, King George V and his son King Edward VIII, with King George paying yearly visits to him at his home, the 4,000 acre estate Hall Barn.[2][3][4] On the 18th of December 1913, it was recorded by the Prince of Wales himself - later King Edward VIII - that he and his father King George had "shot over a thousand pheasants in six hours - about one bird every 20 seconds". Altogether, 3,937 pheasants were killed. While it has been said that the shoot was not a slaughter and that very respectable birds were presented to the Guns, on the train journey home, the Prince of Wales noticed that the King was unusually quiet, his silence eventually broken when he famously said: “Perhaps we overdid it today.”[5][6][7][8][9]
His eldest son, Harry, was created Viscount Burnham in 1919. On December the 19th, 1924 at the family seat, Hall Barn, Harry hosted a dinner party with King George V, Rudyard Kipling, Harry's daughter, the Hon. Dorothy Levy-Lawson, (1885-1937), and her husband, Major the Hon. Sir John Spencer Coke (1880-1957), amongst the guests.[10] In 1926, their daughter Celia Coke (1919-1996) was described in the Illustrated London News when "nearing seven", as "just the prettiest thing of that age ever".[11] Celia and her brother Master Gerald Coke and sister Rosemary - later Baroness Hamilton of Dalzell[12] - were reportedly amongst the family mourners on the 25th of July, 1933, at the funeral of their grandfather Viscount Burnham.[13]
Lord Burnham died in 9th of January 1916, aged 82, and was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son Harry.
Notes
- ^ "No. 25566". The London Gazette. 9 March 1886. p. 1136.
- ^ Hall, J. "Max Beerbohm Caricatures". Yale University Press 1997. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
Lord Burnham was a close friend to Edward VII - who as both Prince of Wales and as King paid yearly visits to Hall Barn, home of Lord Burnham...
- ^ Thompson, F. "Gentrification and the Enterprise Culture : Britain 1780-1980: Britain 1780-1980". O.U.P. 2001. p. 72. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ Rose, Kenneth (1983), King George V, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson pp. 39–40
- ^ Heffer, S. "The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914". Random House, 21 Sep. 2017. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
On 18th December, 1913, Lord Burnham invited the king and his elder son, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, to join....
- ^ H.R.H. King Edward VIII (Windsor), pp. 86–87 A King's Story, London: Cassell and Co. 1951
- ^ Thompson, F. "Gentrification and the Enterprise Culture : Britain 1780-1980: Britain 1780-1980". O.U.P. 2001. p. 72. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "Fieldsports Magazine - Hall Barn, then and now". Retrieved 23 July 2015.
(At Hall Barn) the 1913 team of Guns included HRH King George V, the Prince of Wales, Lord 'Bertie' Vane Tempest, the Honourable Harry Stonor, Lord Dalhousie, Lord Charles Fitzmaurice and Lord Ilchester...While it has been said that the shoot was not a slaughter and that very respectable birds were presented to the Guns, on the train journey home, the Prince of Wales noticed that the King was unusually quiet, his silence eventually broken when he said: "Perhaps we overdid it today.".
- ^ Holland, E. "Edwardian England: A Guide to Everyday Life, 1900-1914". Plum Bun Publishing, 12 Jan. 2014 -. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
....led to the most infamous shooting in 1913 at Hall Barn, a Buckinghamshire estateowned by Lord Burnham, of 3,937 pheasants— which led to even King George V remarking "perhaps we overdid it today." Against the boom of guns, ladies usually ...
- ^ Kipling, R. "The Letters of Rudyard Kipling: 1920-30". University of Iowa Press, 1990. p. 189. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
...Lord Astor...Lord (Harry) Burnham, his brother and duplicate, his son-in-law (Sir John Spencer Coke)...I (Kipling) sat next to the King.... [notes - The Hon. Sir John Spencer Coke (1880-1957), son of the 2nd Earl Leicester, married the Hon. Dorothy Olive Lawson in 1907...]
- ^ "A LADY-IN-WAITING: Illustrated London News, London". Illustrated London News - 30 January 1926. Retrieved 24 June 2017.
....younger granddaughter (of Viscount Burnham) Miss Celia Coke, nearing seven, is just the prettiest thing of that age ever
- ^ Kidd, C. "Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage 1990". Debrett's Peerage 1990. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
Rosemary Olive (Baroness Hamilton of Dalzell), b 1910: m 1935, 3rd Baron Hamilton of Dalzell. Residence – Garden Cottage, Snowdenham House, Bramley, Guildford.— Celia Dorothy, b 1919: m 1942, Stamp Godfrey Brooksbank, Capt ...
- ^ "LORD BURNHAM (Harry Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham)". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer Yorkshire, England - 25 July 1933. Retrieved 1 August 2016.
The family mourners (at the funeral of Viscount Burnham) included Lady Burnham, the Hon. Mrs John Coke: (Lord Burnham's daughter), Major the Hon. John Coke: (Lord Burnham's son-in-law), Master Gerald Coke, Celia and Rosemary Coke: (Lord Burnham's grandchildren)...
References
- Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990, [page needed]
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [self-published source] [better source needed]
- Lundy, Darryl. "FAQ". The Peerage.[unreliable source]
External links
Media related to Edward Levy-Lawson at Wikimedia Commons